Your aspiration is the end benefit. It’s your new identity—who you want to become. Previously, we translated that into SMART goals, which are more specific and time-bound. Now we need to break down your SMART goals into milestones.
Milestones allow you to focus your energy better and to avoid overwhelm. They clarify the steps ahead, help you feel more motivated, and give you a taste of success more quickly. You can dream as big as you like, but you need to break down that dream into SMART goals—and those goals into achievable milestones.
An aspiration can have multiple goals to cover the different aspects of that dream, value, or project. And each goal often has at least a couple of milestones—the key phases that you go through to achieve a goal. Here are some examples.
| Aspiration | Happy family life | Share my wisdom | Health and vitality |
| Goal #1 | Marry a smart and loving partner before I turn 35 | Write an influential book on Leadership by end of next year | Lose 40 pounds by Christmas this year |
| Milestone 1 | Work on myself | Research and plan | Lose the first 10 pounds |
| Milestone 2 | Find a good partner | Write first draft | Lose 10 more pounds |
| Milestone 3 | Build our relationship | Get it published | Lose 10 more pounds |
| Milestone 4 | Get married | Promote it | Lose the last 10 pounds |
As you can see, for some goals the milestones will be different tasks or sub-projects (first two aspirations above). For other goals, more quantifiable in nature, the milestones will be different landmarks of progress in the same activity (third aspiration).
You can also benefit from having a start and end date for each of your milestones. These dates are a plan, not reality. Reality will rarely be like any of your plans; yet planning is still extremely useful. A clear timeline helps you keep your momentum, build a sense of urgency, and channel your resources properly.
Action step: Break down your goals into specific milestones.
- Select an aspiration to focus on, then one of its SMART goals.
- Break down that goal down into milestones.
- Add a start date and deadline for each milestone.
- Repeat the steps above for every goal in every aspiration.
If your big aspiration is not yet clear, then simply get started with a SMART goal of improving a specific area of your life and developing the habits that you need for that purpose.
